DENVER - On a night when Terrence Ross added his own chapter to best posters of all time, perhaps the bigger story-line was the Raptors getting off the schnide in Denver.

It has been 10 years and a month since the Raptors last tasted victory in the state of Colorado and, to be fair, the deck was definitively stacked in their favour Friday night to end that skid

Without Ty Lawson, “the head of the snake” as Raptors head coach Dwane Casey refers to the Nuggets point guard, Denver never did get the game at its tempo. Forced to play a half-court offence, the Nuggets tried to take advantage of their physical interior players and for a while it worked.

Denver owned the paint for much of the game and with both Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan stuck in neutral for much of the first half, it was enough to keep the Nuggets in it

But as soon as DeRozan and Lowry started to heat up in the third, this one started to go all in Toronto’s direction.